


Predation

by wanderinghooves



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Flashbacks, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5937262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderinghooves/pseuds/wanderinghooves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Musings on the nature of Kakashi's Sharingan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Predation

"There he is."

"Where?"

"Over there, with the mask and the book."

"The Shinobi of a Thousand Jutsu."

"The Copy Ninja."

"Kakashi of the Sharingan Eye."

The jōnin in question bears the remarks with a practiced air as the commentators pass, betraying no reaction.

The visible portion of Kakashi's face remains expressionless, casually perusing the latest installment of Icha-Icha as he lounges against a storefront. His exposed eye, half-lidded and diplomatically grey, bears a lazy appearance of total disinterest.

And yet.

Beneath the thick layer of military cloth, the infamous monster rages eternal, twisting madly in its socket like a rabid dog in a cage.

Demanding blood.

Demanding death.

Kakashi is no Uchiha, so the demon does not obey his wishes, never retreats into his consciousness despite his attempts to tame it. It roves hungrily, predatory, in search of a target, a victim for its insatiable hatred. But the prison, the layers of blue cotton armor foil its hunt, and so it turns against its surrogate, ravaging his mind as well as his chakra reserves in its wrath.

Kakashi remembers when he first acquired the monster, remembers Rin's intelligent fingers plucking the spiraling eye from Obito's crushed skull, hands still slathered in the Uchiha's blood as she deposited it into the emptiness of his damaged left socket. Releasing the beast into the cavern.

_"I'm about to die... but I'll become your eye... and see the future with you."_

Obito had bequeathed it as a gift, the last act of a dying boy for his closest friend.

Sometimes Kakashi wonders if it was meant as a curse.

A curse for him living, instead of Obito.

For his worthlessness being inexplicably allowed to survive, instead of being rightfully stamped out of existence in his teammate's place.

The monster grows the strongest in the night, uncovered; its sinister glow solidifying in the dusky plane where Kakashi lingers on the edge of consciousness, in the moments where the faces of the dead haunt the red fiend's grey twin, fleeting images of Rin and Obito and Minato-sensei slipping out of focus before they can be grasped.

In the moments when he is the weakest.

Kakashi often wonders if this is a glimpse of what jinchūriki feel, the barely-suppressed rage, the struggle for self-control. The constant, futile fight against the demon sharing his skin.

No, he concludes. This is much more primitive.

Kakashi's monster has no mind.

And so he pulls the cotton barricade down over the frantic orb, securing his defenses against its eternal fury.


End file.
